December 21, 2006

In the sprawling city of Karachi, shops dealing in second-hand books and magazines are few and far between and the business is mostly done on pushcarts which are loaded with stacks of books and can be seen every day in selected areas of the city, reports Faiza Ilyas


When Mark Twain said good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience constitute the ideal life, he was well aware of the pain that comes through reflection and contemplation. This also explains the reasons for the status quo in society. However, in our part of the world the relationship of man with the written word has not been able to flourish and the idea of an informed public has always remained elusive.

It is unfortunate that book reading could not develop in our culture and national psyche as it has in many other societies in the world where books have maintained their popularity over the years, despite the influx of many other sources of information including the Internet. There are few people in society who read books for the sheer love of them, while there is a larger group bound to the habit as a source of entertainment and information.

The steep rise in the cost of living over the past few years has had a direct impact on people’s ability to keep their interest in reading alive and thus one can find the elderly and the young browsing through used and pirated books being sold by pushcart vendors. In the absence of any official initiative to meet the educational and intellectual needs of the people, these pushcart book vendors, in the words of a book lover, ‘are doing a great social service’.

In this huge sprawling city of Karachi, shops dealing in second-hand books and magazines are few and far between and the business is mostly done on pushcarts which are loaded with stacks of books and can be seen every day in selected areas of the city such as Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, North Nazimabad, Saddar, Clifton and P.I.B Colony. They travel from one corner of the city to another, to places where weekly bazaars are held and to areas where booksellers can find customers. Used books are also on sale at the Koocha-i-Saqafat and in a lane near the Regal Chowk in Saddar every Sunday.

Among these the most popular place perhaps, is the vacant plot in front of Bait-ul-Mukarram Masjid in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. Booksellers’ line up their pushcarts stocked with a varied collection of books every day at the edge of the ground along the footpath, luring commuters, especially students. However, the last few weeks have been very hard on them. First, there was the five-day long ‘Arms for peace’ exhibition at the Expo Centre when they were not allowed to set up their stalls for almost two weeks, and then the rain took away a few more days.

“This is not the first time that we have had to close down our business. Booksellers are pushed away whenever the local administration feels, for some strange reason, that they would be a nuisance on that occasion. For the arms exhibition, their business was closed for 15 days, and again during the rains a week ago, the booksellers are still denied place along the pavement. At the same time, fruit vendors are using the same spot and the authorities seem least bothered about the litter they spread daily,” complained a group of book vendors.

Rain did a lot of damage to their books and with no help from the city administration they had to drain out the rainwater on a self-help basis. One can still see water standing on the ground which is now emanating foul smell as it has mixed with the garbage dumped there as well as the sewerage water.

“People avoid coming into a stinking ground. We are losing business and some of us have temporarily shut it down till the time the town administration takes a decision about our future,” they said.

One vendor on condition of anonymity revealed that all the vendors pay a fixed monthly amount ranging from Rs200 to Rs1000 to the defunct KMC staff, even though the land belongs to the Railways!

“We are ready to pay some monthly amount to the government for the use of the land if we are ensured we won’t be harassed every now and then,” he said.

One can argue that this problem is not restricted to them alone, all pushcart owners regardless of what business they do more or less face the same situation all over the city and are looked down upon as street encroachers. The booksellers, however, contend that their ‘status’ is different from the ordinary thela walas and they should not be meted out the same harsh treatment.

“It’s true that book vendors barely manage to eke out a living from this business, like so many other people do, but they are different in the way that they are contributing towards educating the masses. Society has not matured enough to understand that the steps to protect this trade would ultimately lead to a well-informed generation. Working under a constant threat of being dislodged anytime merely reflects the apathy of society towards the book business,” says Mohammad Adeel, who sits with other vendors in front of shops in a lane near the Regal Chowk every Sunday to sell used books.

What forced Adeel to venture into this business four years ago was to arrange money for his postgraduate studies. He earns Rs10,000 to Rs12,000 a month from this job which is enough to pay the fees for his computer studies course. He explained that used books are collected from godowns in many towns where junkmen dump books they have collected by going to people’s houses. From there vendors buy the books for Rs15 to Rs20per kilogram.

“There are both good and bad times in the business. At the moment I have books on varied subjects, but I don’t have any book that could fetch me a thousand rupees. Rare books come into the market when an avid book collector dies and his family sells the books. I got hold of a copy of Shahnama-i-Firdousi once and I sold it for Rs2500,” he says.

Most of the vendors display a mixed collection of books and one can easily find all-time favourites like the Hans Christian Anderson series as well as classics by Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Agatha Christie. The latest hit The Da Vinci Code along with Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and The Algebra of Infinite Justice, are also available from Rs20 to Rs200, but are still open to bargaining.

“In the rare Urdu collections, people like to read old books printed in Lucknow and Hyderabad Deccan. Shibli Nomani and Haziq-ul-Khairi are always in demand. Over the years, we have learnt the worth of books and how to fix their prices,” observes Mohammad Ilyas, another vendor.

Decades ago the old Saddar area and Khori Garden used to be the hub for second-hand books. Gradually, the pushcarts vanished and Khori Garden turned into a major wholesale market for imported books from where book stocks are distributed throughout the country.

“Books from the USA, Canada, England, Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai are shipped here in containers and are sold at Khori Garden at much cheaper prices as compared to the market price. For instance, the original Guinness Book of World Records costs Rs1300 which is available for Rs150 here. A world atlas for children is available for Rs200, which sells for Rs495 in the market. Educational books are always in demand. Some of these books are used ones, a few are defective, but most of them are brand new printed in Malaysia and Singapore or given away as surplus stock that is channelled into the developing countries in Asia at cheaper rates,” informs Mohammad Farooq, an old bookseller at Khori Garden.

Over the years, he says, business has declined at the Khori Garden. Two major reasons are the provision of books in educational institutions by contractors and the holding of weekly bazaars and book fairs at regular intervals. Books on antique jewellery, gemstones, watches, the Britannica Encyclopaedia and world history are no longer coming from abroad.

Mohammad Anwar, a retired teacher turned bookseller at Urdu Bazaar, also complains about the decline in business. “It used to be a flourishing market but not any more. Now there is a rush only when the educational year begins and once it passes there is a long dull period. There are many factors that have contributed to this situation; availability of other sources of information is one of them. It’s tragic that books are expensive for those who want to learn and those who have plenty of resources don’t value them,” he opines.

Urdu Bazaar mainly caters to the academic needs of students. Pirated copies have flooded the market which is a blessing for the majority of students who cannot afford to buy expensive books. Mostly, students approach the vendors of old books here who buy a book at one-fourth the price and sell it at double the cost. Many vendors have stopped their business of old books because of the risks involved and now only trade in new ones, while those with roadside pushcarts remain at the mercy of the town administration and the police.

“Something has to be done for these poor souls and their contribution to educating the masses should be acknowledged. I did my Masters in English and various courses in banking with the help of the books which I bought from these thela walas. Had they not been there I would never have had the opportunity to realise my dreams,” says Abdus Samad Khan who retired as the vice president of a bank four years ago.

Abdus Samad Khan is not the only one whose life has been enriched with the wealth of knowledge on sale on the streets. There are thousands of students and intellectuals who frequent places for old books and some of them now possess a fine collection of this treasure. Two persons that can be easily spotted at such places are Professor Sehar Ansari and Syed Ali Karrar Naqvi, nephew of Raees Amrohi and Jaun Alia. Both have a collection of over 30,000 books, some of which are counted as rare.

“I have a copy of the first edition of Angare, a collection of short stories by Sajjad Zaheer, Professor Ahmed Ali, Rasheed Jehan and Mehmood-uz-Zafar, all founders of The Progressive Movement before 1935. The book was burnt due to the political and social pressures at that time soon after its publication. I also have the book which Sir Syed Ahmed Khan wrote in reply to Sir William Moore’s book, a copy of Asar-un-Sanadeed in which Sir Syed made some additions and Sheikh Chand’s Soda that was printed by Maulvi Abdul Haq in Aurangabad in the early 1930s,” says Professor Sehar Ansari proudly who has been collecting books for the last 40 years.

Syed Ali Karrar Naqvi is one of those people who are trying to create history by preserving it. By collecting old books, coins, stamps, first-issue envelopes, cutlery, lamps and many other used items, he, in his own words, wants to trace the history of human evolution. He also has a collection of cellphone cards printed in Paris which show the various stages of the development of telephone, and at the same time, he owns one of the initially made sets of the telephone which still functions.

“I have tried to gather the first editions of as many books as possible, especially literary books. This includes Bagh-i-Urdu (a translation of Sheikh Saadi’s Gulistan), Iqbal’s Bal-i-Jibrael, Aab-i-Hayat by Azad, Karbala and Goadan by Prem Chand, Yadgar-i-Ghalib by Hali, Awaz-i-Haq by Josh Malih Abadi and Daur-i-Naun by Goa Jehan Abadi. Besides, I also have old manuscripts of the Quran, sets of old Urdu and English dictionaries, books on religion, politics, history, nature, environment, health and many other subjects. Most were collected while I wandered through the streets in search of books,” he says.

Professor Sehar Ansari and Syed Ali Karrar Naqvi, both acknowledge the contribution of old books sellers and feel that the government should patronise them. “It’s unfortunate that the habit of book reading is vanishing fast and such places are dwindling over the years. The government should realise their necessity and provide these book vendors with a proper place where they can do business without a worry,” they say.